Selfie search and face data: what's changing
From 1 November, you decide how long the face data that makes selfie search work is kept, for your whole workspace or gallery by gallery. The default is No expiry. Choose a period and each photo's face data is deleted automatically that long after it was uploaded. Your photos stay exactly where they are.
How it works
If you choose a period, every photo follows the same simple path. The clock is per photo: it starts when that photo is uploaded. On No expiry, the default, face data stays until you delete it or switch selfie search off.
Day 1
A photo is uploaded
Faces in it are turned into face data, so buyers can find it with a selfie.
For the period you chose
Selfie search finds it
Buyers take a selfie and see every photo they're in, just like today.
When it ends
Its face data is deleted
Automatically and permanently. The photo is never face-indexed again.
After that
The photo carries on
Buyers can still find it by bib number, time or browsing, and buy and download it.
Face data isn't the photo
Face data is a set of numbers describing the faces in a photo: a face template. It's only used to match a buyer's selfie. Deleting it removes the template and nothing else.
What happens on 1 November
Nothing is deleted because of its age unless you choose a period.
No expiry, unless you choose a period
Every workspace and gallery starts on No expiry. You can choose 30, 90 or 180 days or 12 months in Workspace settings → Face search, and each gallery can choose differently in its own selfie search settings.
If you choose a period
An automated job runs every day and deletes each photo's face data once it's older than the period you chose. If you change the period, the new one applies from the next check.
When all of a gallery's face data has gone
Selfie search ends for that gallery. Buyers who try it see a short note that points them to bib search and browsing instead.
Selfie search switched off
Face data is deleted 30 days after a gallery's selfie search is switched off; switch it back on within those 30 days and nothing is deleted. For galleries already switched off before 1 November, the 30 days start from 1 November at the earliest. Archiving a gallery doesn't delete its face data: an archived gallery keeps its selfie search.
Deleting a gallery, or closing your workspace
Deleting a gallery deletes its face data straight away. If you close your Photohawk workspace, all its face data is deleted within 24 hours.
What doesn't change
Deleting face data never deletes a photo. Everything else carries on as it is today:
- Your photos and galleries
- Sales, orders and your earnings
- Downloads, including free-download galleries
- Bib and number search, and text search
- Time search and browsing
- Selfie search, for as long as you keep a gallery's face data
What your buyers will notice
On No expiry, nothing. If you choose a period, most buyers still won't notice: they look for their photos in the days and weeks after an event.
- With a period, selfie search won't find photos uploaded longer ago than that period.
- They can still find those photos by bib number, time or browsing the gallery, and buy and download them as usual.
- In a gallery whose face data has all been deleted, selfie search shows a short note pointing them to the other ways to search.
- Selfies used to search are still never stored, as today.
A good habit: remind buyers to search soon after each event, in your event emails or social posts.
Why you choose
You decide how face search is used in your galleries, so you decide how long its face data is kept.
Face templates are biometric data, which privacy laws treat as some of the most sensitive personal data there is. Those laws ask that it's kept no longer than it's needed. How long that is depends on your events and where they take place, so the period is yours to set: No expiry, or 30, 90 or 180 days or 12 months after each photo's upload.
If your galleries are covered by one of these laws, choose a period that fits it:
- GDPR and UK GDPR
- Biometric data used to identify people is a special category of personal data, and the storage-limitation principle says it must be kept no longer than necessary.
- Illinois (BIPA)
- Requires a public written retention schedule and destruction of biometric data once its purpose is met, with fixed deadlines.
- Texas (CUBI)
- Biometric identifiers must be destroyed within a reasonable time, and no later than a year after the purpose for collecting them ends.
- Colorado
- Biometric data must be deleted once its purpose is met, with fixed outer deadlines and a yearly review.
- Washington
- Biometric identifiers may be kept no longer than reasonably necessary to provide the service.
What Photohawk does whatever you choose: face data is deleted when you delete a gallery or a photo, 30 days after selfie search is switched off, within 24 hours of a workspace closing, and within 30 days when someone asks. Once a year we also review whether the face data we hold is still needed.
This page explains how Photohawk handles face data. It isn't legal advice.
Questions
No. Only the face data used for selfie search is ever deleted. Photos, galleries, sales, orders and downloads are not affected.
No. Every gallery stays on No expiry unless you choose a period. If your galleries need a limit, set one in Workspace settings → Face search.
Yes. No expiry is the default. You can choose 30, 90 or 180 days or 12 months for your whole workspace in Workspace settings → Face search, and each gallery can choose differently in its own selfie search settings.
Yes. Choose a period, or switch off selfie search for a gallery: its face data is then deleted 30 days later, and switching it back on within those 30 days cancels that. Deleting a gallery deletes its face data straight away. Archiving a gallery doesn't delete it.
Anyone can ask at any time, in the gallery (selfie search, then "Make a request") or by emailing support@photohawk.com. Their face data is deleted within 30 days, and you can also do it straight away from the gallery's selfie search settings.
By bib or number search, time search or browsing the gallery, exactly as today. Only selfie search stops finding them.
No. A selfie is used only for that one search and then discarded, as it is today.
No. It's the same for every plan and every gallery.
The full details
Our face-data policy sets out exactly what face data we keep, for how long, and how it's deleted. Questions? Email us and a real person will reply.